Boosting member engagement
Maintaining and boosting engagement will always be an extremely important part of any strategy.
That is where social media comes in. Research shows that in five years, there will be 4.4 billion people on social media.
In this article, we’re going to share some ideas for how you can improve engagement with your members, both now and in the future.
Social media is the home of engagement
Posting on social media is a simple way to promote your many projects, interact with your audience and grow your brand in the community. With the wide range of platforms available, it’s important to work out which your target audience uses so you know where to focus your attention.
So, how can you use social media effectively to improve member engagement?
Get to know your audience
Do you know exactly who your key audience is? Who are the people that spend the longest time on your website, that engage with your social media accounts the most?
It can be easy to make assumptions based off who you think they are. But it’s important to spend the time gaining a greater, more in-depth understanding of your audience.
There are plenty of free analytics tools available to you – such as Google Analytics – to review your website audience, or Facebook analytics to assess your social media followers.
If you can successfully identify who your current audience is, then you know the types of people you need to try and reach with any advertising or customer growth activities.
Ultimately, you need to use these analytics tools to gain insight and knowledge on your customers, so that you can support and improve engagement.
On social media, for example, look at which types of posts generate the most likes, shares and comments.
Perhaps your followers love video content, and don’t tend to respond to updates with no image?
Use this insight to enhance your content strategy and create a great customer experience.
Provide staff members with guidelines
Managing your social accounts is not a one-person job. It needs to be a joint effort, from several members of your team.
One easy step you can take is to provide your staff with simple guidelines for managing your social media channels.
We recommend providing example responses for common enquiries. That way, as soon as a new question or comment comes through, anyone can respond using the scripted answer. That also helps your team know what tone of voice to use, which in your case is likely to be professional but friendly and engaging!
Being known for fast responses is great for your organisation and gives people a reason to engage with you. On the other hand, if customers know they never receive a response on your social media, they’ll stop interacting.
Drive engagement through competitions
A great method for driving interaction with your current followers, and building awareness with new audiences, is through competitions.
You could offer prizes (like club merchandise, meeting a top player or being the mascot for the day) for the first 20 people to respond to your social post or signing up to a newsletter.
This newsletter can be set up using LoveAdmin software and can be sent to groups, specific demographics, or individuals. Learn more about member comms here.
Explore new channels
If you have a stronger presence on one channel, such as Facebook, you may think you have social media covered. But it’s worth working on your weaker channels too, to increase your online presence further.
Let’s say, for instance, you don’t have a TikTok account yet. Although having a large, engaged following on Facebook alone is great, think about the new audiences you could reach by being present on TikTok too.
Some of these channels might not be relevant to your brand; perhaps you’ve already outlined that no one within your target audience would be on those platforms.
However, ruling out something like LinkedIn without considering first the types of customers you could reach there would be a mistake.
Many professionals have LinkedIn accounts, so that’s a perfect place to find and engage with potential new and existing community members.
Plan your content strategy
It’s also important to think about the content you plan to share on each social media channel. What works on Instagram doesn’t necessarily work on X, for example.
People behave differently on each platform; they go to Instagram to see pictures and videos, but they may open X to read funny jokes and see what’s happening in the world.
Explore what you think your followers would expect (and like) to see from you on each of the different channels, and tailor your content to that.
Most importantly, cater your content strategy to what you can share. For example, don’t worry about setting up a new YouTube account, if you don’t have much video content to post.
Remember that people won’t follow accounts that don’t share regularly, or if the content being posted isn’t what they want to see.
Additional customer engagement methods
While social media is certainly the key to building customer engagement, there are many other methods you can use too:
1. Showing loyal members appreciation
What better way to build even stronger member relationships than to surprise them with a reward?
Maybe one member has been with your community foundation for five years, or perhaps they always interact and support you on social media. Thank them by giving them a small gift.
It doesn’t have to cost much; it could simply be a voucher for a free session. Or perhaps a free piece of merchandise.
Recognising the individuals for their support and thanking them with a small gift like this shows just how much you appreciate them. They’ll feel great, knowing they mean a lot to you. And you’ll be encouraging even greater loyalty from them.
2. Free trials
It’s important that you’re not always focusing on selling to your members; you need to be providing them with free value too.
An example of this is offering free trials. Trial sessions get new members through your doors, and it doesn’t take long to show them what you have to offer.
3. Offers
Many of us are drawn to offers and bargains. How could your organisation make use of this to meet new potential members, and build relationships with existing members?
What about letting members know that if they bring a friend to the next session, they get money off their class price? Or if they pay for a block of sessions in one go – perhaps a term’s worth of classes – they receive a discount?
All of this is possible with LoveAdmin software, learn more here.
